The St. Johns herald., 1887-11-03
DINING WITH AN EX-KIEG.
The BarbarIc ronp of India Transported
 Lo the WeSt.

 The BarbarIc romp of India Transported
 Lo the West.
 Ny fo-tuno has never carrie lmemuch among the great. but have dined with q ng. albeit, King depOsed.
 When Ekbal ood Dawlah, the e1-King of Oudh. came over to England to pre-s IS claims l was introduced to him by Mr. Hector. who hal married dear an l. charming friend of mine and who had been I6 years merchant in Bagdad. Hence it was that a5 Mr. Electors friend, he being also the King's-1 was included in famous dinner given by Ekbal ood Dawlau at hIs house in Brompton.
 It was dinner entirely in the Eastern style, where we sat on the floor and ate with our fingers.
 Mr. Hector was very earnest in im- pressing on his wife and me the most scrupulous attention to two things-to touch nothing with our left hands-do we not all remember the men in the "Arabian Nights" whose right hands were wrapped in their cloaks, and who thus were obliged to eat with their left?-and not to soil our fingers beyond the first joint.
 We all sat on cushions on the floor, where also the dinner was laid. Sir Henry Layard, Sir Henry Rawllnson, Capt Felix Jones, late Resident at Bush- ire and his wife, a pretty Chaldean and e Nestorian Christian; Prof. Yambery. and ourselves formed the party.
 We first had a couche of rice on our plates, on which were afterward placeI all the meats of the table. When the King wished to honor us he scooped up some rice and laid it with his own hands on the plate designated.
 Wishing to specially honor Mrs. Hec- tor he made up ball of rice and put it into her mouth.
 do not remember the dishes besides Rabobs and pheasants dressed to look like pears; but the food was beyond measure delicious.
 After dinner gorgeous creatures, dressed in white, with bullion fringe to their sashes, broughtround basin, rose water. SC nted soap, and fringed and embroidered towel, when we all washed our hands and were clean. Then came the tu of the servants.
 Though @ water drinker for his own rart, the King allowed wine-notably champac cne-to those who liked 1t. And what struck me as specially royal and fine was that when the servants begars their meal he went in and gravely served them himself with wine-A bottle of champagne in each hand.
 Mrs. Hector and were rather out of tke run of things, for the conversation was carried on in Persian, Hindustan, or Arabic indifferently. and pretty little Mrs. Jon1s was the only woman who could talk with the men.
 That all sorts of merry iesto" were sad, perhaps broader than would quite eu:t E giish tastes, was vi!ent by the faces and the loud laughter of the men. Sometimes they translated for our bene- fit and sometimes tEey would not, and I never regretted moro my ignorance of the environments in which found my self.
 remember, too, how Sir Henry Lay ard teased us-ail in good humor-by ,eaying how incomparably more beautiful, moro attractive altogether, was Mrs. Jones In her Eastern dress and childlike simplicity, than were Western women in their starch and stays.
 Another striking incident took plac5 that evening. Before dinner, and while ths King was out of the room, Prof. .Vambery disappeared. Presently there glided in q wretched being all in rags and seeming dirt-a gaunt, wild looking CT ature, who stole in like shadow and sank down in Q noisele-s bundle close to tho wall by the door.
 When the King came in and saw this fakir he called out in a voice of thunder: |: "Who is this dog?"
 His face was really terrible. He drew back with look of disgust and rage that made him look like some wild animal rather than a man.
 When Vambery revealed himself and explsiaei that it was simply joke his royal wrath a little subsided, but he ordered him to leave the room at once, and to have done with such detes:able fooliDg.-[ Fortnightly Review.